The final months of 2017 will go down in history as a watershed moment in three of Southern Africa’s most important economies: South Africa, Zimbabwe and Angola.

We have come a long way since we started as a staff of two in a 59m² office in the Joburg suburb of Blairgowrie. Today we employ more than 120 people in Southern and East Africa in eight practices.

Since the end of 2016, 18 Kenyan commercial banks had contracted 53,833 agents - up from 23,477 agents in December 2013 - who facilitated transactions valued at KES 734billion during the course of the year.

There is a payments revolution currently taking place in Nigeria spearheaded by Nigeria Instant Payments (“NIP”) and its younger sibling, mCash, which is used for low-value transactions between merchants and consumers. 

Uganda's SafeBoda service shows much can be achieved by fintech in Africa, but it also highlights the danger of trying to replicate a business model without fully understanding the nature of local demand. 

In South Africa it is common practice for shopping malls to charge for parking, but none have been enabled for near-field communications or NFC. For those of us who seek to live cashless the consequences are considerable.

Overcoming organisational cultures and moving towards shared meaning with Appreciative Inquiry: Kirsten Mulcahy of the Evaluation for Development practice shares experiences from two projects on the AEA365 blog.

There has been little demand for the innovative, easy to use  M-Akiba payments product in Kenya.  As economists who study savings behaviour, we at Genesis Analytics are not surprised.  

Consumers have associations with banking brands that don't always travel well in cross-border M&A activity. See the results of our Facebook survey of what a change to a bank’s identity would have on their customers' attitudes towards that bank.

Building new generation capacity is a significant investment. The timing and mix of the capacity are crucial, and carry implications for the economy. Within this context, long-term energy planning is critical. 

Diaspora bonds are in vogue, but why? Investment bankers crow that the Nigerian issue in July was “popular” and “oversubscribed by 130%”, but any issue can be oversubscribed if the pricing is attractive enough.

Banks are turning towards technology to help navigate increasingly volatile markets, but the evidence of success in this digital journey is still limited in Kenya.